The Throwaway Payroll (Blogophilia 19.13)

It's a writer's choice week and I'm going with a rant. 

In the last several weeks the news has been filled with rioting and what not. Many of the aggrieved folks...

Nah. We don't need to hear my blathering about statues being graven images and false idols. There's already way too much of that out there. 

Instead ow about another story from my work past. 

For several years in the 90s, I worked for the agency that provided mental health services for the state of Georgia as a payroll supervisor. It was a fast-paced, challenge with an employee base ranging from janitors to doctors. Among the places we serviced were full-time mental hospitals. One of the facilities I worked with was called The Georgia Mental Health Institute or GMHI, located a few miles from my office in Atlanta.

You'll recognize the campus if you are a fan of the series "Stranger Things". This is the set.

At the time I was working, it was one of the smaller units in the system, with 600 employees and a normal patient load about 2/3 of that. The place was ...interesting...to say the least. 

One year the agency was going through the annual financial audit. I was at my desk late one afternoon when I got a call from a television reporter asking why GMHI's employees weren't getting paid. My boss had already left for the day, so I put the fellow on hold and called down the hall to his boss. After assuring him I had said anything (because I honestly had no idea what was going on), I transferred the call. It turned out the auditors were having everyone sign for their checks to make sure the names matched and somebody didn't like that. 

Yeah...It was that kind of place. Often, I couldn't tell the patients from the staff.

One day, I was met by my boss at the door with his coffee cup in his hand and a serious look on his face. It was a bad day at work, for sure. The conversation went like this:

"Chris, GMHI threw their payroll in the dumpster."

I blinked. I remembered their normal courier was on vacation and they had a sub doing their run and he was late picking the run up the day before. 

"Excuse me. I don't think I heard you right. Could you say that again?"

"They threw their payroll away."

Oh, Lord, it's too early for this. It was the day before payday. This was in the days before direct deposit became mandatory, so there were going to be live checks in the run. 

"Let me grab some coffee", I sigh. 

I get my fuel and meet him at my desk. I hit the speed dial button and put on the speaker. I really didn't care if the rest of the office knew. I may have to pull a few of them in if it turned out to be bad enough.  

A young assistant HR clerk I liked answered. 

"GMHI Personnel."

"This is Chris. I understand you have a problem." I managed to keep my voice even.

"Yeah." I could hear the fear in his voice."The guy who was subbing for Annie got a page from his girlfriend and he chucked half his mail run in the trash back by cottage 6. Security found it about 3 this morning on a client check."

My boss asked, "What have you done so far."

"I dove into the dumpster and got all the boxes out."

I mute the phone to let the laugh escape. This sounded like a Drew Carey episode with Mimi pushing Drew into the trash.

"How many the boxes are torn up?"

"A couple got splattered with kitchen crap."

I muted the phone again. We're having a hard time keeping it together. I mean, it's serious when somebody doesn't get paid for whatever reason. But this was ridiculous. 

When we came back, the Boss piped up.

"We'll need a list of damaged checks."

I added, "And if you fax it to me by noon, you'll have the replacements tomorrow."

Boss looks at me and I shrug. I've put together worse projects.

"I'm sorting them out now. What if someone complains?"

I roll my eyes. 

"Tell them they can climb into dumpster themselves."

We hung up and we went into the boss's office. As we go in, I motion to one of the clerks I supervise to follow. We told her what had happened to be ready if I needed her. She whined a bit about her own workload but agreed to help out. 

It turned out not to be as bad a problem as we thought. There were only a dozen checks damaged bad enough to matter. I worked them up and delivered them personally to the campus the next day (I wasn't about to trust the couriers) in time for check distribution. The employees didn't know the difference.

One fun thing was one of the replaced checks belonged to the courier who caused all the ruckus. It turned out he had been picked up for a parole violation that night and never returned to work. As far as I know, he never did receive that check. 

I wasn't sorry when the place closed a few years later. 

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Writer's Choice

 Topic- A Bad Day at Work 

Hard Prompt-Stranger Things

Easy Prompt-use "dumpster dive"

Pick Guesses: Coffee (in blog), Pick up (in blog), Mounties, TimBits, Feedback, drive-thru, North, Oh Canada!, Cleanup